The 2025 NFL season is here, sorta, and it’s time to get up to date on fantasy football rankings. Today I’ll take a look at PPR wide receivers. If we take a look back at last season’s top fantasy receivers, we aren’t going to be too surprised. The top dog was easily Bengals receiver Ja’Marr Chase, as he won accomplished the triple crown of receiving — tops in receptions, yards and touchdowns. Those gaudy numbers pushed his PPR fantasy points to 23.7 per game, while Justin Jefferson and Amon-Ra St. Brown finished second with 18.7 per game. Chase ended up beating out the likes of Saquon Barkley and Jahmyr Gibbs in total fantasy points as well.
Who should be the first receiver off the board?
It would be easy to just plug in Chase here as the top receiver again, so I will. The Bengals will again be a pass heavy team with a great quarterback in Joe Burrow. There is no reason to predict a slow down from them for anything other than injuries. The other top receivers in the league don’t have much reason for us to believe they’ll take a significant step forward. Jefferson should still get plenty of work in a pass first offense, but will also have an unproven QB in J.J. McCarthy. I still believe he has the best chance to usurp Chase, but things will need to go well at the QB position. St. Brown won’t have Ben Johnson around and Jameson Williams is too good to not give an uptick in work this year. CeeDee Lamb has a shot, as the Cowboys should be extremely pass heavy and the addition of George Pickens can only help Lamb’s efficiency. You can make a good case for a handful of receivers, but they’ll need to prove they can be as consistent as Chase. The good news is that there are a bunch of great options early in drafts if you don’t have the first pick.
Rookie receivers continue to put up good numbers, but there is inherent risk in picking them. They need to make a smooth transition to better competition while also beating out NFL caliber receivers for touches. But, as we get closer to Week 1, we should also get answers to a lot of those questions. We know that Travis Hunter and Tetairoa McMillan are locked into starting positions come Week 1, but at this point, we’ve still got a lot to learn about rookie receivers and their opportunities in 2025. Those two are the only receivers who are currently must-draft players, but we could see that change as we get closer to kickoff. But be cognizant of where they are on the depth chart when drafting in redraft leagues with shallow rosters. Just because you think a rookie receiver has the juice it doesn’t mean he’ll get to serve it up to defenders.
